NFL Top 100 Analytics: Evaluating the Factors that Drive Top 100 Rankings

The NFL Top 100 is a ranking released each summer, designed to highlight the top NFL players based on the votes of their peers. Each year, NFL players are asked to rank the league’s best players, with results providing an insider’s perspective on player performance. This project aims to better understand the factors that matter most to NFL players when determining these rankings. Specifically, we explored how player positions, team affiliations, and other external factors might influence the rankings. We also identified whether certain factors, such as media coverage or statistical performance, play a substantial role in shaping the rankings. Our methodology began by collecting data on the NFL Top 100 rankings, along with other major player rankings (like those from ESPN and CBS Sports), as well as individual player statistics. We then analyzed how the NFL Top 100 has evolved over time, looking at trends in player selections and the impact of factors like legacy and QBR. In doing so, we aimed to uncover patterns in the rankings and predict which factors NFL players prioritize when making their selections.

Continue reading Max Wilson »

Gradient Gel Inserts: Innovative Solutions for Knee Pain Relief

The present research focuses on developing a novel shoe insert made of a gel material featuring a controllable stiffness gradient to improve biomechanical foot alignment, reduce knee joint loading, and alleviate knee pain. The material’s stiffness was adjusted by varying polymer concentration, and compression and indentation testing provided insights into the optimal range of these concentrations. A specialized template was designed to ensure consistent gradient sample production, facilitating repeatable results. Fatigue tests simulated real-life conditions, demonstrating the material’s durability under repeated stress. The findings evidence the feasibility of creating a customizable gel material for shoe inserts, offering a promising solution
for managing knee pain.

Continue reading Antoinne Robinson »

Coercion in Campus Sexual Misconduct

College women are at high risk of experiencing sexual misconduct 1, which can be classified as either assault or coercion depending on the extent of violence used in perpetration. Coerced sex is a common experience, especially among college women 5, but it has not received as much attention as assault. The purpose of this exploratory research is to examine experiences and correlates of sexual coercion among college women and men using a relatively new measure of assault perpetration.

Continue reading Ailsa Boger »

The Role of Trust in Parents and Others in Emerging Adults’ Well-being

Trust in others is an important factor associated with well-being and relationship quality. Little psychological research has examined U.S. emerging adults’ trust in their parents and how that trust is related to their general trust in others and their own well-being. With a sample of 152 undergraduate students at a northeast U.S. university, we tested the hypothesis that emerging adults’ trust in their parents and in others would predict three key components of well-being: self-esteem, self-efficacy, and life satisfaction. We also predicted that parental care would positively predict well-being while psychological control would be a negative predictor. In hierarchical regressions, students’ self-esteem was predicted by their judgments of others as trustworthy and their trust in their fathers (but not mothers). Self-efficacy was positively predicted by students’ judgments of others as trustworthy and their willingness to trust others. Life satisfaction was predicted by their willingness to trust others and their trust in their fathers (but not mothers). When parenting variables were added to the regression model, maternal psychological control strongly predicted lower self-esteem and dropped all trust predictors to insignificance. Lower life satisfaction was predicted by students’ willingness to trust others, their trust in their fathers, and mothers’ psychological control. These results suggest that during emerging adulthood, students’ trust in others, their trust in their fathers (but not mothers), and their mothers’ use of psychological control have strong implications for their own well-being.

Continue reading Matthew Bucaloiu »

Sign2Sign – A First Attempt

At the core of human engagement is communication. While technological advances enable convenient translation for different language speakers to communicate, millions of Deaf, Mute, and Hard-of-Hearing people still face immense hurdles due to the lack of accessible tools to facilitate direct sign language translation. Our project aims to build a Sign2Sign direct immersive translation tool using WebXR that takes input from any accessible camera and produces output in WebXR-supported platforms. This paper presents the preliminary results of direct translation between ten gestures of American and Chinese Sign Languages.

Continue reading Titus Weng »

Evolution of College Football Offensive Strategies Since 2000

The offensive strategy of college football has changed from a rushing focused play-calling strategy to a more passing focused play-calling strategy. Data from multiple levels (e.g., FBS, FCS) were analyzed to assess this evolution for college football. The evolution is further analyzed against the National Football League during the same time period. The data were collected from public websites for the various teams, conferences, and leagues. The data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and various statistical analysis techniques.

Continue reading Jason Ussery »

Title: Synthesis and characterization of Lithium orthosilicate

Abstract:
Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) have found their way in every aspect of our daily activities and operations due to their energy storage capacity and lower global warming potential. Despite the obvious advantage, the issue remains electronic waste management at end-of-life. Most of the spent LIBs are dumped in landfills constituting potential negative environmental impacts such as heavy metal contamination of groundwater table, soil contamination and damage to human organs arising from bioaccumulation. While efforts have been made towards waste management, the conversion of spent LIB to useful materials remains under-explored. The present study explores a novel way for the synthesis and characterization of lithium orthosilicate (Li4SiO4) using spent LIB as precursor. The study provides an opportunity to convert electronic wastes into a sorbent material for mitigating climate change. The produced Li4SiO4 samples were characterized by BET, XRD, ICP-MS, FTIR, SEM analyses to help understand the structure and composition. Furthermore, the material was treated for CO2 capture in a TGA. Our findings demonstrated that the prepared material is Li4SiO4 and an environmentally friendly and low-cost preparation method. Furthermore, the material showed promising results for CO2 capture with a BET surface area ranging from 2.5 – 5 m2/g. These results are significantly important in furtherance of research on carbon capture, utilization and storage.

Continue reading Chimezie Frank Onwudinjo »

The Effects of Pins on Force Chains in a Granular System: A Simulation

Granular media are large collections of disordered macroscopic particles interacting via dissipative forces. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study a two-dimensional, 50:50 binary mixture of purely repulsive harmonic disks of radii 1:1.4. By freezing the top and bottom walls of particles we shear the system at a constant rate and apply dissipative interactions depending on relative velocity. We study how force chains are influenced by the addition of fixed minuscule disks of radius 0.004 placed on a square lattice. We study the forces Fij between particles i and j. We will present distributions P(Fij) both for the complete system as well as for layers. We also study the system both near the jamming transition at p = .00025 as well as slightly above the transition at p = 0.001. We compare the distributions in steady state during the shear.

Continue reading Jackson Lewis »

Investigating the Microscale Mechanics of Actomyosin Networks

Biological cells exhibit a myriad of complex nonlinear responses to stress or strain, namely stress stiffening, softening, elastic recovery, and plastic deformation depending on the nature of the stress applied. Actin, a vital cytoskeleton protein, plays a key role in maintaining cellular stability, enabling motion, facilitating replication, and powering muscle contraction. Its filaments are entangled and crosslinked, which gives the cytoskeleton its viscoelastic response and modulates various mechanically-driven processes regulated by actin-binding proteins such as myosin. This important molecular protein-Myosin, generates contractile forces by exerting tension on actin filaments in opposing directions which creates elongated tail-to-tail thick filaments through ATP hydrolysis. The process generates forces at the piconewton level. The forces generated are crucial for orchestrating localized pulling forces during fundamental cellular processes such as division, migration, and muscle contraction. Despite the growing evidence entailing myosin-II as a key part in such microscale mechanics, the mechanical behavior/response of the network crosslinked by myosin-II is poorly understood. Beyond its role in introducing network contractility, the precise threshold concentration of myosin-to-actin and ATP ratio, to which myosin acts as a crosslinker, remains elusive.
Our project aimed to develop a series of in vitro reconstituted actomyosin networks by tuning the myosin-to-actin ratios to examine the mechanical properties and structural reorganization of these networks. This approach discerned the chemical environments conducive to actomyosin network formation, provided insight into how different ratios of myosin-to-actin affects the network’s structure and mechanical properties, and determined how the relaxation time scale depends on the concentration of myosin.

Continue reading Bernard Iringire Nkusi »

Design, fabrication, and testing of a legged soft robot that can walk and jump
This poster showcases the design of a quadruped robot equipped with legs made from a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material known as FilaFlex. This material choice enables the robot to jump over a staircase with a height of 17 cm. The innovative leg design allows the robot to wind the legs into a fully flexed position. A separate motor then releases an actuation system, enabling the robot to leap upwards effectively.The robot’s design integrates LEGO bricks and gears with 3D-printed components made from PLA and FilaFlex, along with DC motors, to enhance performance. Through extensive modeling and simulations using MATLAB, OnShape, and SolidWorks, the robot successfully overcame the presented obstacle.The final design, constructed from laser-cut materials, proved robust enough to handle the internal forces generated during operation and achieve its intended task. This work highlights the ongoing advancements in soft robotics and demonstrates the potential for robots to navigate diverse terrains. Future developments will focus on building the body that is lighter and can support a higher load. this will allow it to jump higher and over bigger obstacles

Continue reading Kade Davidheiser »